POLL: Counting Crows - August & Everything After

As a high school Neil Gaiman dork, I was pretty upset w/these guys getting Dave McKean to do covers and "A Murder of One" w/the Sandman refs and all that.

What are the Sandman refs? I only read that series just recently.

Out of curiosity, what's inspired the hate? I hated this kind of music in '94 already, so after ridding myself of the album I never thought about CC again.

I don't mind affected singing - I'm a Bowie fan. But Duritz's affectations are the affectations of a guy trying to sing beneath his capabilities, and it's grotesque & insulting & revolting. I'm reminded of a guy I knew in college who drove a beat-up VW bus, which he totaled one weekend, so he had to drive the car he'd actually driven west from his home. You know: the fucking Ferrari. That guy is the lifestyle equivalent of the Counting Crows singer. His singing sounds like his hair looks, always. The only excuse for this style of singing is if you can reasonably persuade the listener that you are in a sort of ecstasy within which your voice & enunciation obeys some higher law, cf. Van Morrison. It's hard for me to imagine a singer I'd like less than Adam D; it's like nails on a chalkboard, except that I'd rather listen to nails on a chalkboard for an hour every day than to the Counting Crows for fifteen minutes once a month.

kkvgz let me answer your question in the dorkiest way possible:

http://img251.imageshack.us/i/iamsoangryrightnow.jpg/

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/5347/iamsoangryrightnow.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

When I was fifteen my friend once made me listen to Perfect Blue Buildings on repeat for two hours after he had been dumped, so definitely not that. Don't really have anything more to say about this album.

Don Dixon!!!

But Duritz's affectations are the affectations of a guy trying to sing beneath his capabilities, and it's grotesque & insulting & revolting

u r essentially a failure as a human being & i hope u get swallowed up by a bog

bros voice on this record is insane srsly hes doing some brutalist neo-primitive thing w/it. like on 'raining in baltimore' which is just like a piano & some 90s studio retardedness (like a dulcimer idk) hes p much wielding his voice its so laden w/emotion & 'meaning'. most of the lyrics on the songs are terrible & so i can get not really singing w/ a lot of nuance or craft or w/e & just like hammering home on this shit. its incredible fuiud

the songwriting is p not great in places but theres a line in 'anna begins' thats like 'every word is nonsense but i understand' & thats kinda how i feel abt this record. its this monolith of sweeping emotions its not meant to be examined really closely or considered in detail its dimensions are meant to awe...

ne way i have a playlist w/ this and the spinanes 'arches & aisles' and mag fields 'holiday' & its a p fukken badass playlist so w/e

u r essentially a failure as a human being & i hope u get swallowed up by a bog

"I need a friend...I need a phone caaaalll."

maybe if you listen...reeeaaall haaard.

booming post from lamp

listening to a bunch of counting crows on youtube cause I couldn't remember what most of these songs sound like. duritz has written some good songs (and decent lyrics, even) I think, but this album doesn't contain many of them. I think that late-period pop-rock/shrek soundtrack counting crows is better than the 1st album. voted 'round here'

lainie84
10 months ago 63
I don't know one person who DOESN'T like the Counting Crows!!!!

It felt like that in the 90s to be fair. I've seen them live twice.

I've seen adam duritz on the street a bunch of times, he is an absolutely grotesque person up close

wasn't he nailing 2/3 of the Friends chicks in the 90s?

im saying, this is a guy who has dreadlock extensions, and yet he was banging courteney cox and jennifer aniston back when that meant something, thats gotta count for a lot

every time I saw him that's exactly what I was thinking

i wonder if he still has a checklist he looks at every day, trying to figure out how he can cross off Kudrow's name

maybe they had sex with the dreadlock extensions instead...?

I can't imagine it'd be that hard now, what the hell has she done lately?

one step away from Monica/Rachel tentacle porn. thanks, internet. xpost

dude shoulda just gone after matt perry during his pill addiction days and called it a push on the hat trick

i think there's some other thread where he is referred to as Fatty Dread, I approved.

I was into the next couple albums for a while back in the day, and I still like of the songs (This Desert Life had nice production too, and some nifty McKean artwork in the liner notes). This one kinda blows though, there's just so much dull, morose shit on it. Time and Time Again? Ugh. Anna Begins is probably the most interesting thing on here but I don't think I've heard any of these in years.

btw the title track to this is dope. i was a member of the counting crows message board when i was like 12 or 13 and i remember the day it was first played live, good memories <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sOd0Bzjqho

voting anna begins, def.

a friend of mine is in a "weird" band with one of those guys. yes, "weird". they all have fake names. you'd never believe that he wrote all those corny ass songs.

the biggest Counting Crows fans went on to become even bigger Dave Matthews fans

abbott: that Sandman panel is a take on a legit nursery rhyme!

I just remembered that I gave this album quite a few chances because one of the Camper Van Beethoven guys is on it.

I somehow avoided hearing more than one or two CC songs during the 90s, and when someone played me an entire album of theirs - possibly this one, not too sure - sometime circa 2004 I thought it was some earnestly dull alt-country record which might have been (then-)recently extravagantly praised every month in the pages of Uncut magazine

so I was slightly surprised when I found out who it was and connected it to their 21st century reputation, but hey, plus ça change I guess

upon further review due to this thread there are imo nice guitar tones and phrases all over this record.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

oh well time for a run-off to decide this matter once and for all

3 of the top 4 are my favorites, so it's cool.

Emmy Rossum has revealed to USA Today that she and Adam Duritz broke up quietly two months ago.

"We're still very close friends," she told the paper.

Emmy started dating the Counting Crows frontman last fall, just as her ex-husband, music executive Justin Siegel, filed for divorce after a year and a half of marriage.

Earlier this year, Emmy explained Adam's appeal to People.

"I get why chicks dig him," she said. "He's extremely kind, incredibly intelligent, thoughtful, creative and respectful."

Adam has dated a slew of beautiful actresses, including Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox.

Man, Counting Crows really were into alliteration, eh?

amazingly i heard "mr jones" for the first time in my friend's car the other week and was like "who is this??" - i had only ever thought of counting crows as some incredibly uncool 90s band but this song is amazing, feels like it fits pretty nicely into the sort of rock i like from the last 15 years or so, falls somewhere on the third eye blind----gaslight anthem spectrum

sort of can't believe ship hates that song

I could imagine thinking about that song differently had I only heard it 1 time instead of 10000000000000 times

the lyrics are mawkish & inept but 'time and time again' has some really pretty guitar work & great chorus imo

also i like to think its taken from a really amazing alice munro short story

lol get real you losers this band blows

"all your life is such a shame, shame, shame"

still rep hard 4 this record dont give a fukk

"all your life is such a shame, shame, shame"

That's the bit of the song that made me start the poll in the first place.

That bit right there is definitely, definitely the best thing they did.

Yeah thats a great part, the machine gun snares on the last hook get me every time. Love how the album ends after that climax.

Also:

I wanna get me a little... oblivion... baby
I try to keep myself.. AWAAAAAYEEEEYAAAAYEEEEEYAAAAAAA FROM ME

The funk guitar tones on Round Here, and also the drums when the song rebuilds. Fukkit, the whole 2nd half fuuid.

the Anna Begins intro and all the key changes

HER KINDNESS BANGS A GONG... ITS MOVIN ME ALLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG

The organ on Ghost Train.

I decided I liked mrs jones the last time I heard it so I guess a 10000000000001st listen was what it took

err mr.

I think I like it now too? hard to say, I loved it as a kid so much. Just listened to this after about 10 years away from it. Sounds great still.

Add a vote for "A Murder of One" to put it over the top. Done.

30 years old today

The correct answer is "Omaha."